I have made a thin film of nanomaterial. But the thin film is not flexible when kept in vacuum assisted oven. But when it is place at room temperature, it break into pieces and gets oxidize. Can anybody help me?Is there any relationship between flexibility of thin films with stability? If yes, how to make it stable.
Faraz Uddin ,
I think the reason that your thin film is breaking into pieces is that there is too much residual stress.
You have both intrinsic (e.g., deposition conditions) and extrinsic (differences between the substrate and thin film properties) stresses. You don't state what the nanomaterial is, nor how it is formed. Also, what substrate is the nanomaterial formed upon? If you can provide some more details it may be possible to provide some guidance in how to reduce this stress.
I also attach some information that I hope you find useful.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408438808243734?journalCode=bsms20
Jules Lloyd Hammond Actually it is formed by vacuum filtering process and it is a mixture of carbon and nitrogen. I have heard from some one that combination of carbon and nitrogen is highly unstable, could you please elaborate that how to solve this issue?
OK, I now understand why you posed your question in that way- you are really asking if the instability of the carbon/nitrogen composite affects its ability to form flexible thin films.
We use vacuum filtration to form nanomaterials (e.g., SWCNT/MWCNT papers or composites including carbon black, mesoporous carbon, MnO2, etc.).
You still provide very little information. How are you forming the N-doped carbon material? I attach recent article from Wu et al., 2018 that discusses some of the issues related to the synthesis of N-doped carbon nanomaterials.
What filter paper are you using? Can you control the vacuum pressure? Do you initially form a suspension/dispersion of the N-doped carbon in a solvent? If so, what density and solvent are you using? Do you provide any mechanical agitation? If you are using glassware for the vacuum filtration method, is it heated? What is the duration of the vacuum filtration?
As an example, when adding materials such as MnO or graphene oxide to our MWCNT suspensions to form modified buckypapers, we need to take care to slow down the filtration process and ensure there is not a large temperature gradient between the two sides of the filtration paper (the dispersion becomes slightly warm after ultrasonic agitation, we then use liquid nitrogen within a solvent trap on the pump-side of the vacuum filtration system). Then, if we dry the formed paper too quickly, it cracks. If we allow it to acclimatise slowly, it forms a strong and flexible paper.
Jules Lloyd Hammond I got an idea from your detailed explanation. Thank you for your help.
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